I Want Blood, Guts, and Chocolate Cake

[Applesintime]

Anthony raised the axe.

[Maraoone]

There wasn't a plan. There wasn't a plan. Diana hadn't, like, loaded the gun behind her back or anything, Anthony was raising the axe and there wasn't a plan, the gun was raised and no bullets were coming out and Anthony was still standing and he was about to kill her best friend and there wasn't a plan, there wasn't a plan, there wasn't a

In Britnee's bag, nestled at the very bottom, was a bottle of sulfuric acid. A plain, nondescript, white bottle of what they also called oil of vitriol. It was the weapon gifted to her on the first day of all this. And she had stuffed it beneath her ugly green costume and her disgusting Subway tuna sandwich and her first-aid kit and her map and everything else because she never, ever wanted to use it. She stuffed it down there because she'd taken chemistry class, and she remembered, very clearly, the warnings her teacher had told her about this chemical. She knew it was extremely corrosive, she knew its fumes were deadly, she knew that if it made contact with water, it could potentially cause explosions because of the exothermic reactions. And there had never been any use for this knowledge other than something to fuck up her day for a bit, and then forget about, and move on from. And she still hadn't had any use for this knowledge up to now because, like, she thought things would work out for her somehow. She thought she could've taken a gun from someone else, that Diana could take care of things, that she would've had a shard of glass or a stick at the very least, anything but that.

There wasn't a plan. Her best friend was about to die before her eyes and there wasn't a plan.

Except this.

The bottle was in her hand, pulled out from the backpack she'd swung in front of her during all this. The bottle was opened already. And she walked towards Anthony.

[Ohm]

Once she saw the axe raised, her feet started moving. Slowly and carefully away from him.

But more importantly, away from whatever Britnee had in her hands. The look on her face and what it conveyed at that moment told her it was something bad.

She was moving in. Her eyes widened.

[Applesintime]

Diana's eyes widened, and there were faint footsteps from behind him on the floorboards and Anthony whirled around, the axe now facing towards Britnee. There was a polyethylene container in her hands, with the lid off. You never stored anything good in polyethylene. Especially on this fucking show, where the only focus was on what could cause death and destruction the best. Either way, if she was walking towards him with an open bottle, there certainly wasn't going to be anything good inside it, because frankly, he didn't know Britnee well but he didn't think she was stupid enough to like, think a bottle of water would stop him.

And then her arm reared back as if she was going to throw it at him, and his arms acted on their own, fumbling with the axe, twisting it around to the flat and sort of thrusting, sort of hitting upwards, like how you flipped pancakes but with an axe instead of a pan and unknown, possibly deadly chemicals instead of a pancake.

[Maraoone]

It splashed on her face. Kinda like when you slap the bottom of a beer bottle so the liquid just sprays out all over you. Dee had done that to her once, it had been humiliating and she'd been all pissed at the time, but then she laughed after a while, after she got over herself.

It had been funny then.

It felt oily, kinda. The skin on the right side of her face, shoulder, arm tickled. Her eye, like, stung a little, like when an eyelash falls into your eye. And, like, her mouth had been open because she hadn't expected the axe to be pointed at her like that, and she inhaled a bit when the liquid came towards her face, and now her mouth tingled, and her throat tingled, her esophagus, her stomach.

Without thinking, she reared back her arm again and aimed the liquid at Anthony once more. She aimed for the eyes this time.

[Applesintime]

The liquid splashed all over her face, and seemingly did nothing. It sorta looked like water, but now it was all over her and it was out he could feel his eyes starting to water. It was something bad, that was for sure. He took a step back, reflexively, a cough swelling up in his throat. And then, her arm reared back again, and Anthony wasn't quick enough to hit it back so he threw his left arm up, burying his face into his elbow, covering his eyes. There was a tingly warmth on the underside of his arm, where the liquid had soaked through the shirt, a little splash of tinglyness on his forehead and a good dollop on his left cheek.

But it wasn't in anywhere important, his eyes, his mouth, and that was the important thing. He wasn't blind, he wasn't going to die because he swallowed some weird fucking chemical, and most of it was on Britnee rather than him. Anthony would call that a success, even if only partially because he had still got some of the liquid on him and he needed to get that off as soon as he could, preferably with a nearby shower or a tap or a chemical sink, unlikely as the appearance of one of those on a ramshackle flotilla might be.

[Maraoone]

Blindly, she rocked her arm back again. And again. And again. Even as the liquid depleted itself, splashed on the wooden boards beneath them. Even as what little liquid remained simply sloshed around inside the bottle rather than made its way outside. She wanted him to hurt. She wanted him to hurt. She wanted him to hurt.

And, then, the tingling got a bit hotter. Kinda, like, danced around her skin a bit, felt a bit warmer. And, like, she got the feeling that she should've started screaming right then and there, but she didn't want to give Anthony the satisfaction of hearing her like that, so she clenched her jaw, and then she realized that it didn't really quite matter whether she wanted to scream or not as her esophagus was burning and starting to close up, so she wouldn't scream anyways.

Except for little shuddered gasps, she silently lowered herself to the ground, placed the bottle besides her, and began curling in on herself.

[Applesintime]

Anthony just stared at Britnee as she dropped to the ground, put the bottle down besides her, and went into the fetal position. Then his brain realised, his face, his arm, the liquid was starting to get hotter. There was one thing it could be.

Acid.

Anthony wasn't unfamiliar with the concept of acid as a weapon. People memed about London being stabbing capital and knoife and sure it was sometimes like that, but sometimes people just threw acid in each other's faces over gang disputes and girls. Someone from his school got attacked, because he was in the wrong part of London at the wrong time, and someone mistook him for another guy who looked like him and chucked some acid in his face, and the dude never came back to school. He didn't die, because there was an announcement if someone died but yeah, he just stopped going. Poor dude. What mattered was he needed to get this off now now now before it fucked up his face and

He took off running, knocking the bottle over, the few dregs left inside spilling onto the floor.

((Anthony Golden continued in I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully))

[Ohm]

She should have gotten the bullet earlier. That was the thought running through Diana's head as she watched her friend and foe get doused with liquid that Britnee had with her. As the seconds weered on and the short scuffle between the two ended, Britnee was now on the floor, curled up into herself.

Anthony was gone, running away and knocking things over. She didn't pay him any mind. She had scared him away.

Diana started to blink as she got closer to her friend, her hands dropping down in front of her as she listened to the gasps that were coming from her.

"Brit?" She asked during her approach. The answer was more gasps, she quickened her pace over to her.

"Brit?! Hun?!"

[Maraoone]

Breathing is not a conscious activity up until the moment you are made aware of it. You walk while you breathe, you talk while you breathe, you fight while you breathe, you laugh, cry, eat, drink, read, work, fight while you breathe. Your lungs just pull in and take out air in the background of your entire life. It only becomes a conscious effort if, say, the prose you're reading right now discusses the process. Or if some physical activity or event makes the act too strenuous, like running for your life.

Or like a chemical corroding at the lining of your throat and stomach, like acid reflux sticking to your insides, making you want to tear your own flesh apart just to stop the feeling.

It took one gasp, two gasps, three gasps before any parcel of air got into Britnee's lungs, and even then, it was not enough, it was not enough, it was a half-second of reprieve and then nothing for a second, for two seconds, for three seconds, and then another half-second of reprieve, and then repeat. Her entire body being shocked into breathlessness.

She wanted to get it out. She wanted it all out of her, off of her, but there were a few things that kept her rooted to the spot. There was the possible presence of Anthony right outside, the possibility of leading herself into danger yet again, but this time in a worse position. There was the possibility of leading Diana into danger yet again, and after everything, she couldn't allow that.

But, mostly, it was after the acid splashes really started to set in, when her face and eye and shoulder and arm started to feel like it was being sliced off by a razor bit by bit, cut by cut, second by second, it was after this feeling started to set in that she realized one thing.

This moment would be the least painful for the rest of her life.

There was no avoiding it. She'd read the note that came with the bottle. She knew the damage her weapon could deal, and she'd been dealt the full effects. And, she didn't want to face it. She really, really didn't want to face it. The rest of her life would just be this, the razor slices and the suffocation and the dry drowning and, and, and the nothing that would come after it all, and she wanted it to end now, she wanted Diana to shoot her in the head now. There was nothing waiting for her at the end, nothing more to live for, just the pain. And she was so, so, so fucking scared. And, she couldn't even tell her this, she couldn't even, she couldn't even moan in pain, much less speak. She considered jumping from the top of this ship, or falling into the sea, or bashing her head against the floor, and they were all just painful ways to die, they were all just ways to somehow hurt herself more on top of everything else, and so she was frozen.

And so she stayed for thirty seconds or so, even after Diana came to her side.

And then, all of a sudden, she stood. She grabbed Dee with her left arm, the one not splashed in acid, and, half-stumbling, dragged the both of them out toward the moonlight-washed deck.

((Britnee Joyner continues in Out on the Sea, We'd Be Forgiven))

[Ohm]

Her questions went unanswered. Instead, silence filled the area aside from her echoing steps and her friend squirming on the floor.

Diana was unsure of what to do once she was next to her. Things were looking bad, her breathing was uneven. And her skin... something was terribly wrong.

But before she could do anything, her friend rose from the floor.

"Hun?" She asked before a hand shot out towards her and gripped her arm. She could feel Britnee's fierce grip as her hand closed around it. She then dragged her away, leaving her bag behind. With Her injured friend leading the way, Diana was unsure of what was to come.